I have a question. I am going to setup a RAID 1 on my computer (Windows 11). I need thoughts on how to do this. I have three options, as I understand.
One, setup a RAID 1 with Windows Disk Manager.
Two, setup a RAID 1 with Storage Spaces.
Three, setup a Hyper-V VM running TrueNAS with a ZFS RAID 1.
The more straight forward question is what are the pros and cons for options 1, 2, or 3.
The interesting question is, when is the “drive” available for a Hyper-V TrueNAS VM? I.e. with the windows solution the disks should be available at the start of the system. If, if, I have I use a Hyper-V VM for TrueNAS (stored on a Windows Partitions) and have the non TrueNAS VMs stored on the TrueNAS share when will they start?
From my experience (mostly Windows Server) SW RAID is usually slow, RAID1 is usually better performance but not sure on desktop OS performance.
HW RAID card may give you better performance. them usually require specific drivers (not by default included in Windows), so this could be an issue in a disaster situation (while troubleshooting).
Also you might have problems if the card fail, it may be difficult to recover information if you don’t find the same model or similar.
For VM+ZFS, i think this may be the best approach from a recovery POV. You can implement easy backups online with snapshots and revert to a previous version really easy.
For 3D (gaming, rendering, etc) you will need GPU passthru, so this may take more time to setup.
Also, for gaming some games does not allow to run from VM so may be impossible or really a pain to make them work.